


Infinity War: Loki (How Loki Became the Joker)

by thaliaarche



Category: Loki- Fandom, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: A bit of Comics!Loki, Amnesia, Arkham-inspired Hospitals, F/M, I Mixed Up Death Goddesses, MCU-canon-compliant through GOTG, Other, PTSD, Post-Ragnarok, Sometimes the Lying Character is the Only One Telling the Truth, Trauma, Unreliable Narrator, Who Trusts Superheroes Anyway?, Why is the Tesseract a Woman?, Xanatos Gambit, during Infinity War, post-Infinity-War, superhero after-party
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-20
Updated: 2015-06-20
Packaged: 2018-04-05 06:04:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4168776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thaliaarche/pseuds/thaliaarche
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The God of Mischief crafts a tale about death, love, myths, infinity and Batman villains. The story spans from the days of Ragnarok, all the way through the Infinity War. Of course, Loki's your narrator, so may the reader beware . . .</p>
            </blockquote>





	Infinity War: Loki (How Loki Became the Joker)

**Author's Note:**

> This is canon-compliant up through GOTG (with hints of AoU) but is actually set during Thor: Ragnarok and the Infinity War movies. As a result, I made up the plot of a few MCU movies in between, using spoilers that have already been released. You should also know that I took a somewhat syncretic approach to Hela and Death, so the former is now a single form of the latter. And given that I ship Loki/Hela (because of Loki/Leah in the comics), I just had to write a bit of a love triangle for you . . .
> 
> Hope you enjoy the story!

I am a god.

You, of course, know that is a lie. Everyone knows that I am thoroughly mortal; I escape death only by faking it. When I threw myself off a bridge and down that black hole, I knew that the hole wasn’t infinite, that I’d pick up my life again on the other side.

This is all a lie.

\---

Everyone knows Thanos was insane. It’s there in his title– the Mad Titan. He raved about serving “Mistress Death,” a talking skeleton whom he claims to have somehow met, the only person– thing– force to ever command his respect, and it was to secure her respect that he assembled an Infinity Gauntlet and tried to wipe out everyone in existence.

He was infinitely delusional.

That was a lie.

\---

 Everyone knows that I “talked my way out of death” at Ragnarok. Nobody has a clue about what that means, nobody wants to know, it’s just another time when Loki missed the “Loki’s dead” memo. My reappearance on Knowhere– conveniently timed to reclaim the Tesseract, turn the Infinity Gauntlets against each other, save the universe, and watch the Avengers and Guardians of the Galaxy showcase the power of combined team-dysfunctionality– surprised nobody.

\---

Everyone knows I only attacked Midgard to get myself out of Thanos’ hands– that’s why I failed so spectacularly during the invasion of New York. Once safely snatched up by Asgard, I did my best to break out again, place various objects of excessive magical power out of Thanos’ reach, and form an alliance with all Nine Realms against him. I botched the negotiations with the Fire Giants on accident. Wrecking Asgard with Ragnarok was an accident. And about that other time I nearly destroyed a Realm . . .

Everyone around me calls me unambiguously, straightforwardly evil for what I did to Jotunheim.

I can’t remember what I did to Jotunheim.

\---

Everyone knows, on a logical level, that I have the mental stability of an adolescent raised by a somewhat malfunctioning family in the wrong Realm, who as a child lived with my own suspicion that something was inherently wrong with me, with enormous social pressure and– as I’ve only realized in the last few years– with more psychiatric disorders* than Asgard’s healing books even list. In practice, nobody cares.

Sometimes– in the Nova Corps headquarters, or Avengers Tower, with my feet firmly on the concrete floor– I find myself spinning in space, imprisoned by the weight of nothing, still bound in the black hole that I threw my body into, still bound by the truth that my mind was a black hole for countless decades beforehand. Time itself slips and totters there, and, even when you speak, there is no sound, even if your limbs lash out, you move nowhere, for there is nothing except nothing to push off of, and you are locked into place in the silent, draining cold, with nothing to do but hear the thoughts that spin without end in your own tiny head.

And that was one of my less disturbing flashbacks.

*If you ever plan on parenting, here’s a bit of advice– don’t leave newborn runts exposed in a temple during a blizzard, even the Frost Giant ones. They might turn out cranky and/or genocidal.

\---

As Ragnarok thundered ever closer, before my pretense of being Odin shattered entirely, I of course crossed every line I could, delving into the King’s most secret library and finding my path away from death . . . in a book about necromancy and related black magic. When magic is strong enough, the runes wind into your fingers as you touch the page, and the spell sews itself into your eyes as you read. The greatest magic speaks, with murmurs and melodies that shift shape for each listener and resound, imprinting their suasive echoes like shrapnel on souls. And that Book of Death’s blackened voice held more sway over me more than any other whisper I’ve heard from beyond, more than all the Tesseract’s endless brilliance.

\---

So the Fire Giants invaded, and Asgard was doomed, and I joined with Thor and other assorted idiots in a pointless battle to protect it. Surrounded by everyone I ever hated as a child, I died an honorable death, incinerated by a Muspelheim firebomb (about as quick, painless and, given my heritage, ironic a demise as I could arrange at the time).

And so my battle began.

Dying is falling down a lightless, endless black hole and so, for me, not too unusual an experience. Most of my time in the Underworld escapes memory– again, not all that unusual. Nowadays, I feel like an amnesiac, waiting for my circumstances in life to trigger and uncover the scenes of death.

Here is what I have stitched together so far.

\---

I found Death as a woman, sitting on a throne of ash. She wore black leather armor and a silver-clasped green hunting cloak, with an onyx-and-emerald mask covering her face. Her skin was gray. The hall was black. We saw each other nonetheless.

And in an archaic form of the All-tongue that I had studied for centuries but would confound most others, she asked me what I, Loki, Master of Lies, would say to her, how I would trick my way out of her realm, and I told her quite straightforwardly that I wished to live to crush Thanos, who aimed to wipe out all life at once.

“And I, Death, would want to prevent all creatures from dying because . . .”

Because Thanos’ gift was a grand one, I finished. Mine was subtler, yet still finer. For life begot life, and since all– most living creatures would adorn her halls eventually, it was in her interest to wait, be patient, and choose an infinite stream of new souls over time, rather than a finite– albeit massive– offering at once.

She decided to give me a chance. I returned to life and saved the multiverse. You’re welcome.

Despite the amnesia, I’m quite certain I lied to her.

My silvertongue spun the lie that I wanted to live again, that I still wished to leave Death.

\---

I actually somewhat tell the truth, when I say I saved the multiverse. I did indeed re-commandeer the Tesseract’s affections– yes, “affections”– allowing Stark and Banner to power a device that, given enough time, would destroy one Infinity Gauntlet and its wearer, Thanos, along with it. Nebula, Gamora, and various other do-gooders used their crash-slash-smash routine to distract Thanos from our plan. Natasha Romanoff, one of only two superheroes whom I actually respect, used intelligence, dismantling the power source of the Chitauri with a well-aimed hack. She also got her hands on enough explosives to blow up a moon– a side benefit of pickpocketing raccoons– and demolished the lunar base of Thanos’ operations.

Unfortunately, Thanos was lurking not on that barren moon but in his brand-new, impenetrable fortress, buried in a planet’s molten core and shielded by infinite amounts of magic. I was also stowed away there, naturally, hiding from the Mad Titan in his own hideout, going half-mad myself from the magma’s heat. I had cast myself as the multiverse’s last resort, the one who would directly engage Thanos and prevent him from fleeing, in the case that he caught onto our plan too quickly. I knew, of course, that fighting him would be suicide.

There, while the volcanic heat stung my eyes and choked my breath, I realized that the Titan wasn’t mad at all. For the greatest magic shifts shape, sews itself into any soul. Death is a sword, a bullet, a spark, a woman in an emerald mask, a skeleton, a (heart-stopping) lover. Thanos’ courtship took the form of multiversal destruction. And though his hand wielded the power of the Gauntlet itself, I now had leverage over his heart.

Not leverage I would have ever tried using, had a certain Midgardian been less of a mouthy show-off, but Thanos realized, a few minutes too early, that he would somehow die unless he left the area immediately.

“You’re about to fail to deliver your gift,” I dropped my illusions, my death-bound voice sharp as a poisoned blade. “Not that your dearly beloved cares.”

“You know nothing, boy,” he replied, practically ignoring my presence. He whisked his hands about, shooting magic from the Gauntlet, weaving an enchantment to open a portal at record-speed.

“I died with Asgard, not one of my hollow doubles,” I likely continued. “She granted me the gift of living once more. Yes, I have seen her, gained entrance to treat with her, and she granted me life once more expressly that I might stand in your way. She does not care about your gift, she does not want your offering, she does not want you!”

Envy. I have memorized that feeling’s every knife-edge fold.

Thanks to what happened shortly afterwards, the exact speech I improvised has faded from my memory, but Thanos broke from the portal spell, speared me with the yellow of the Gauntlet and sifted through my mind’s shards, checking for proof that I spoke a lie. He realized, finally, that what I said was not quite a lie or the truth; though she did not reject his gift outright, Death had allowed me to compete with Thanos and perhaps provide an alternative offering.

Which I did provide, because, once he finished attacking me, we knew he no longer had the time to craft a portal and escape certain death.

He started laughing maniacally– not in quite as unhinged a fashion as I do, but well enough. He then did exactly what I would have done in his position, yet I didn’t realize it quickly enough to dodge, to run . . .

It was the Bifrost Bridge all over again, a glimmering rainbow as energies of all colors fused and erupted from the tips of the golden Gauntlet. They stabbed me, skewered me, and charged my limbs with infinite power, embroidering magic into my brain and bones, tying the strings of my already looping fate into endless circles. Then the black hole opened up, and I fell in for the final time. This last black hole is like my first– in both cases, I held no hope of escape.

Thanos died, minutes too late, when he and the Infinity Gauntlet exploded in a firestorm that turned the surrounding magma to plasma. I had planned to flee before this through a prepared portal of my own, but I was instead caught in the heatwave that should have seared my skin, vaporized my flesh, and been some thousand-fold deadlier than that blast at Ragnarok– which, of course, I found sufficiently deadly.

Yet I lived.

I didn’t die, meet with her and barter my way back to life by offering the future of almost everything. No, I fainted for a few hours and woke up in the same place, after the magma had– relatively– cooled down. Then, when I was, against all odds, singed but still unambiguously alive, I comprehended Thanos’ curse. The curse of infinity.

The curse of infinite life.

\---

The night after Thanos died, I joined the great superhero after-party. Groot made flower bouquets, Gamora and Nebula practiced fencing for fun, and Rocket and Tony Stark “arranged” an indoor fireworks show. Nobody kicked me out when I came, so I finally challenged Natasha to an official staring contest. (There was also a poker game, where every sensible player employed multiple methods of cheating, and Steve Rogers went broke.)

At dawn, most people had left, and Drax was tottering around drunk, lamenting how he’d lost his greatest love. I saw a swarm of Chitauri dive-bomb the building. With glorious purpose I led the counter-attack, disabling their chariots by ripping out the engines, cracking their alien bones, and detonating several items that I gained from pickpocketing a raccoon.

A logical and surprisingly heroic reaction, until you consider that there were no Chitauri, the chariots were (now disabled) chairs, and the building was rather flammable. My explanation to my superhero captors– that I had had a “Hulk” episode– was terribly honest, and hardly reassuring.

So, even though having superpowers and behaving erratically normally establishes one as a valued member of the Avengers, I got chained, muzzled, and packed off to a mental institution for superpowered loose cannons.

\---

The hospital was quiet, well-lit and thoroughly clean, with white walls and gold accents. In other words, identical to prison on Asgard.

The pills were impeccably designed to calm and increase focus, and I took none of them. I was already serene, contemplating exactly what immortality means. It means that the Infinity Gems– the remnants of the beginning of time– will bind me, until the end of all time.

I am a god. I wished I was lying.

I thought of Taneleer Tivan, also doomed to immortality. He distracts himself with his hobby– collecting– and with the self-imposed cage that is the Museum, declaring his descent into insanity in magnificent style. But I could never content myself with gathering powerful artifacts only to lock them behind a window. Also, if that’s what collecting does to fashion sense . . .

The other person, of course, who stared down the the full enormities of life and death, was Thanos. Sick of life, desperate for Death, he sincerely attempted to destroy everything.

I could be him, in a few millennia.

(At this point in my ruminations, the doctors had processed my initial brain scans, and I naturally snuck a peek. In addition to indicating brain damage from infancy, the results uncovered several, more recent incidences of severe trauma. I’m sure these are in no way connected to that time in New York when the Avengers arrested me, and the Hulk first used my skull to split concrete).

My thoughts turned to memories of the stories that ancient Midgardians told about Asgard, words which travelling scholars on occasion recorded and brought back to Odin’s court. I think, first, of my beginning in the legends– they cast me as something of a brother to Odin, yet also as a child of a Frost _Giantess_ named Laufey . . .

So much was factually wrong, ridiculous in this tale of my origins, that we Asgardians never saw the truth inexplicably threaded in the myth.

I thought on the legends of my life. A tale of a serpent who was also my son, a fine metaphor for my sliest plans. A story about a horse that I’m not going to comment on. A tale of Death . . . My daughter, they called her. The Midgardians misjudged the nature of our relation, yet here I was, drawn to her by love as insistent as gravity.

Then I remembered how I end up, in the myths.

I end up locked up, as I deserve. I am laden with chains even I cannot flee, tiny limbs broken by a mountainous mass, and, as I deserve, a serpent’s venom rains upon me, charring my flesh over and over. There is no escape from an eternity of scorching airlessness, for one can do nothing but die, which I can no longer do, and I am spinning, spinning, bound by the truth that the myth is my fate. In the legends, at least, I broke free from the chains at Ragnarok, but, in this reality, Asgard is already dead, and that particular opportunity placed quite out of reach.

One day, a hero or a villain– it doesn’t matter which– will crush me and leave me for dead. No, I’ll graciously surrender first. Someone will notice I keep surrendering. I’ll bluff my way out. Someone will realize the patterns, learn my fear and blackmail me. But I’m the Master of Lies. But they’ll have forever to find me out, and the evidence will pile around my limbs like stones, if the tragedies and boredom of infinite life don’t themselves drag my mind down.

But I can run. I will run, run . . .

\---

I broke out of the asylum and ran a few hours later, before they attempted a psychiatric interview (“Let’s try word associations. Dark?” “Death.” “Light?” “Death.” “Death?” “Please!”). The Avengers and their allies were likely notified within minutes of my escape, and they no doubt knew that I knew they were notified. I fled where they’d never think to look– New York.

I blended in with the throngs who come to marvel at Avengers Tower like pilgrims. I marveled, too, at the fate which has placed the Avengers as the heroes, the luck which permitted them to bask in that glory. Such golden heroism _is_ the result of luck. In my position, most of them would have died rather than invade New York, even if, by their death, they would practically hand the Tesseract to Thanos. But fortune let them off from the hard choices.

It was Midgard, so naturally an entire microeconomy had blossomed around Avengers Tower, selling costumes and trick versions of Mjolnir and truly horrific bobbleheads. In addition, I discovered that some companies were selling stories of fictional superheroes, illustrating them extensively and printing them in colorful booklets. Several stalls displayed these publications; most popular were tales of a “Superman,” an overpowered nice guy who wouldn’t notice ethical ambiguity if it smacked him on the chin. There were the ones about warrior-women, which I liked far too much, and some more about a race that usually looked like humans but were actually blue and had special powers (I’m flattered).

Then, I happened upon an entire volume describing a heroic “Batman” and, more interestingly, the people who fought against him. These opponents were carted off to asylums on a regular basis; the “craziest” was a comedian gone wrong, a self-proclaimed “agent of chaos” who can find no place in regular society, who begs for a death the hero will never give him.

I sympathize.

The writers who describe this character diagnose him with a shape-shifting personality; he breaks down and remakes himself daily. To survive the paradoxes, the injustice, the ridiculousness of his life, he inverts himself over and over, becoming by turns gentle or brutal, harmless or murderous.

The writers call this “super sanity.”

And suddenly I saw that my only way to run forever is to change, forever. One day I’ll be a girl, next an old man, one day a runt, next a giant, sometimes depressed, sometimes ecstatic, sometimes a prankster, sometimes a raging monster* . . .

Let’s be honest– I am all this, anyway.

 

*Do-gooding is only sustainable when “hell, you don’t got that long a lifespan anyway,” as the only other superhero I respect once observed.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much for reading! If you liked this story, please leave kudos and let me know in the comments. Have a nice day!


End file.
